Sunday, 25 June 2017

Evening dress

A niece was getting married and as soon as the invitation arrived I knew exactly what fabric I wanted to use!

Her theme colours were navy blue and hot pink.

I had purchased this floaty, diaphanous fabric from a small shop on Sydney Road in Melbourne for under AU$5 a metre.
I was planning to combine two different patterns, one for the bodice and one for the skirt until I saw this pattern on McCall's instagram account: M7537. Of course the model photo is very difficult to make out the pattern lines but at least the illustrated dresses explain what the final dress will look like.
I was going to lengthen the skirt but instead ended up using a different skirt pattern: the maxi skirt from B5987.

A few other reviews of this McCall's pattern have commented that the bodice is very low. IT IS. I really wasn't comfortable exposing cleavage at a wedding so I attempted to cut the fabric out with the curve of the neckline a bit higher and I raised the stitch line higher but I do feel that it is still a bit too low. I will be making this dress again and I think I will redraft the curve of the neckline and facing to join one another much higher, at least 4".

Due to the floatiness of the fabric, the waistband that is supposed to rouche naturally just flopped down. So once the dress was finished I stitched lines across the middle to allow the folds to fall in smaller strands. This definitely worked.

I did have to wear a slip under this dress but it was only a knee-length slip. I plan to make a full length slip that also wraps around each boob so that I am completely covered. But that's a plan for the future. All in all, I did love wearing this dress and the floatiness was a dream to swan about in!